Kun Yun Lee, Munirah Ismail, Pangie Bakit, Norhaniza Zakaria, Nursyahda Zakaria, Norehan Jinah, Delina Kamil and Nor Hayati Ibrahim
Formal structured leadership training is increasingly incorporated as a regular fixture in developed nations to produce competent leaders to ensure the provision of quality…
Abstract
Purpose
Formal structured leadership training is increasingly incorporated as a regular fixture in developed nations to produce competent leaders to ensure the provision of quality patient care. However, most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) rely on one-off external training opportunities for selected individuals as they lack the necessary resources to implement long-term training for a wider pool of potential health care leaders. This case study shares the establishment process of the Talent Grooming Programme for technical health care professionals (TGP), a three-year in-house leadership training programme specially targeted at potential health care leaders in Malaysia.
Design/methodology/approach
This case study aims to share a comprehensive overview of the ideation, conceptualisation and implementation of TGP. The authors also outlined its impact from the individual and organisational perspectives, besides highlighting the lessons learned and recommendations for the way forward.
Findings
TGP set out to deliver experiential learning focusing on formal training, workplace experiences, practical reflection and mentoring by supervisors and other esteemed leaders to fulfil the five competency domains of leadership, organisational governance, communication and relationship, professional values and personal values. The successes and challenges in TGP programme delivery, post-training assessment, outcome evaluation and programme sustainability were outlined.
Practical implications
The authors’ experience in setting up TGP provided valuable learning points for other leadership development programme providers. As for any development programme, a continuous evaluation is vital to ensure its relevance and sustainability.
Originality/value
Certain aspects of TGP establishment can be referenced and modified to adapt to country-specific settings for others to develop similar leadership programme, especially those in LMICs.
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Shazwani Mohmad, Kun Yun Lee and Pangie Bakit
This study aims to summarize studies that compared the performance of health-care institutions led by leaders with medical background versus those with no medical background.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to summarize studies that compared the performance of health-care institutions led by leaders with medical background versus those with no medical background.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic search was conducted on three databases: PubMed, Ovid Medline and Google Scholar to identify relevant peer-reviewed studies using the keywords “performance,” “impact,” “physician,” “medical,” “doctor,” “leader,” “healthcare institutions” and “hospital.” Only quantitative studies that compared the performance of health-care institutions led by leaders with medical background versus non-medical background were included. Articles were screened and assessed for eligibility before the relevant data were extracted to summarize, appraise and make a narrative account of the findings.
Findings
A total of eight studies were included, four were based in the USA, two in the UK and one from Germany and one from the Arab World. Half of the studies (n = 4) reported overall better health-care institutional performance in terms of hospital quality ranking such as clinical effectiveness and patient safety under leaders with medical background, whereas one study showed poorer performance. The remaining studies reported mixed results among the different performance indicators, especially financial performance.
Practical implications
While medical background leaders may have an edge in clinical competence to manage health-care institutions, it will be beneficial to equip them with essential management skills to optimize leadership competence and enhance organizational performance.
Originality/value
The exclusive inclusion of quantitative empirical studies that compared health-care institutional performance medical and non-medical leaders provides a clearer link between the relationship between health-care institutional performance and the leaders’ background.
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Xiao‐Liang Shen, Nan Wang, Yongqiang Sun and Li Xiang
This study aims to examine the effects of system and information characteristics in developing users' perceptions towards ubiquitous decision support systems (UDSS).
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the effects of system and information characteristics in developing users' perceptions towards ubiquitous decision support systems (UDSS).
Design/methodology/approach
The research model is empirically examined with survey data from 218 mobile users who have adopted a UDSS, i.e. mobile Dianping.com. A structural equation modelling approach is employed to assess the hypotheses.
Findings
The findings demonstrate that system characteristics of wireless networks, mobile devices and mobile applications significantly predicted system quality, which in turn determined system usefulness. Localisation, immediacy and customisation of mobile word‐of‐mouth were the major predictors of information quality, which in turn determined information usefulness.
Originality/value
This study contributes to our current understanding of ubiquitous commerce, especially mobile word‐of‐mouth, by presenting an integrated research framework, identifying system and information characteristics that are specific to the ubiquitous era, extending system quality and system usefulness from a single system to a combination of systems, and empirically examining the crossover effects between system and information factors.
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Kun Kim, Ounjoung Park, Jacob Barr and Haejung Yun
The purpose of this research is to analyze the shifting perceptions of international tourists to Jeju Island and provide practical lessons to the tourism industry. Specifically…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to analyze the shifting perceptions of international tourists to Jeju Island and provide practical lessons to the tourism industry. Specifically, in regard to three United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) natural World Heritage sites in Jeju, this research measures the most salient topics mentioned by tourists to inform a more accurate perception of the island’s most valuable natural assets as reported by tourism experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a Web crawler to gather over 1,500 English language reviews from international tourists from a famous travel information website. The collected data were then preprocessed for stemming and lemmatization. After this, the processed text data were analyzed through a latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA)-based topic modeling approach to identify the most prominent clusters of ideas mentioned and represent them visually through graphs, tables and charts.
Findings
The findings from this research suggest that there are ten identifiable topics. Topics focusing on “adventure,” “summits” and “winter” showed noticeable increases, whereas topics focusing on “sunrise peak” and “UNESCO” have decreased over time. There is a trend for international tourists to be ever more conscious of the adventurous and rugged aspects of Jeju, and the novelty of mentioning UNESCO status seems to have worn off. Furthermore, there is the proclivity for tourists to mention “worth” and “enjoy” more as time goes on.
Originality/value
This study applies LDA-based topic modeling and LDAvis using user-generated online reviews with time-series analyses. Consequently, it provides unique insights into the changing perceptions of ecotourism on Jeju today, as well as contribution to smart tourism fields.
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Chern‐Sheng Lin, Yo‐Chang Liao, Yun‐Long Lay, Kun‐Chen Lee and Mau‐Shiun Yeh
The purpose of this research is to develop an automatic optical inspection system for thin film transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to develop an automatic optical inspection system for thin film transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD).
Design/methodology/approach
A new algorithm that accounts for the closing, opening, etching, dilating, and genetic method is used. It helps to calculate the location and rotation angle for transistor patterns precisely and quickly. The system can adjust inspection platform parameters according to viewed performance. The parameter adaptation occurs in parallel with running the genetic algorithm and imaging processing methods. The proposed method is compared with the algorithms that use artificial parameter sets.
Findings
This system ensures high quality in an LCD production line. This multipurpose image‐based measurement method uses unsophisticated and economical equipment, and it also detects defects in the micro‐fabrication process.
Originality/value
The experiment's results show that the proposed method offers advantages over other competing methods.
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Caroline Bayart, Patrick Bonnel and Catherine Morency
Data fusion and the combination of multiple data sources have been part of travel survey processes for some time. In the current context, where technologies and information…
Abstract
Data fusion and the combination of multiple data sources have been part of travel survey processes for some time. In the current context, where technologies and information systems spread and become more and more diverse, the transportation community is getting more and more interested in the potential of data fusion processes to help gather more complete datasets and help give additional utility to available data sources. Research is looking for ways to enhance the available information by using both various data collection methods and data from various sources, surveys or observation systems. Survey response rates are decreasing over the world, and combining survey modes appears to be an interesting way to address this problem. Letting interviewees choose their survey mode allows increasing response rates, but survey mode could impact the data collected. This paper first discusses issues rising when combining survey modes within the same survey and presents a method to merge the data coming from different survey modes, in order to consolidate the database. Then, it defines and describes the data fusion process and discusses how it can be relevant for transportation analysis and modelling purposes. Benefiting from the availability of various datasets from the Greater Montréal Area and the Greater Lyon Area, some applications of data fusion are constructed and/or reproduced to illustrate and test some of the methods described in the literature.
The purpose of this article is to analyse and illustrate selected aspects of management in South Korea. South Korean management is placed within its South East Asian context; but…
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to analyse and illustrate selected aspects of management in South Korea. South Korean management is placed within its South East Asian context; but western influences on it are also identified. Parallels with French management are drawn. The article describes the national and business culture of South Korea. It analyses prevailing approaches to organisation and communication. It discusses and illustrates the changing role of the taipan, the family, the clan, and professional management within the context of the ownership and management of Korean enterprises. It examines working practices and relations. It analyses and comments on style of management. It deals with issues of internationalisation and globalisation. The article concludes by analysing a number of issues that are likely to affect South Korean management after the crisis of 1997‐1998, and more generally in the foreseeable future. The analysis is illustrated by a variety of case examples.
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Shu‐Yun Cheng, Ming‐Tien Tsai, Nai‐Chang Cheng and Kun‐Shiang Chen
This study proposes integrating the perceived risk and social influence literatures on online group buying (OGB) intentions with the basic TAM variables (perceived usefulness and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study proposes integrating the perceived risk and social influence literatures on online group buying (OGB) intentions with the basic TAM variables (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use).
Design/methodology/approach
Based on an empirical survey of 304 online adopters of OGB in Taiwan, the paper uses structural equation modeling to confirm the research model.
Findings
The results reveal that perceived critical mass had the largest total effect on intention to use group buying websites. The findings also indicate that perceived usefulness and a sense of virtual community (SOVC) have significant effect on OGB intention. In addition, both perceived ease of use and website quality influence perceived usefulness. As expected, perceived risk has negative effect on OGB intention.
Research limitations/implications
This study only considered buying intention with regard to foodstuffs, and it is unclear whether these analytical results can be generalized to other items. Further research could apply this model to examine group coupons (such as discount vouchers for restaurants).
Practical implications
To sustain a successful group buying website, attention must be paid to enhancing user's SOVC, enlarging the critical mass, and lowering the perceived risk. Practitioners can apply the findings of this study to focus on the determinants of success for their online shopping websites.
Originality/value
Theoretically, while drawing upon TRA studies, this paper provides a model that is capable of lending an understanding of the determinants of OGB intention. From a managerial perspective, the findings indicate that webmasters can improve or manage website members' buying intentions by increasing the sense of virtual community and critical mass.